GC Academic/ Professional Services support thread

[VictoriaLucas102]

I’ve noticed quite a few university colleagues pop up on different threads so thought it might be worthwhile having a dedicated support thread.

I work/ teach in a university in the north of England. I was pretty active on Twitter (professionally but also posting GC stuff) until I had an anonymous complaint (which was ridiculous and ignored by my HoD) and then a senior colleague unfollowed me after I tweeted that biology was real (and that really freaked me out). Consequently I ‘shut up’ and left twitter and have since felt like a coward for doing so. It wasn’t so much about the impact to my own career, but I work in collaboration with colleagues who I truly like and respect and the thought of their work being tainted by my beliefs/actions was just too much for me to cope with.

I know of 3 or 4 male colleagues and a couple of female colleagues who have voiced concerns but otherwise I feel so utterly isolated. Even my closest colleagues, who I would also consider friends, I just cannot even broach this with them.

I know I am not alone but it often feels like I am. I am still very much an ‘early career’ academic (despite my age and professional experience) but then I see what happens to female professors and it makes me even more terrified to put my head over the parapet, and it is not in my nature to ‘keep my mouth shut’ on issues I’m passionate about.

Sorry for the ramble! TLDR; any other GC university folk here who want to chat about stuff ☺️

I am also interested in this.

Has anyone had any experience of simply advertising prizes etc as being open to “women”? Has the definition been pushed, and if so was this from potential applicants (either off their own bat or not) or from third parties? If so, were the third parties from within the institution or elsewhere?

I don’t think anyone would wish to give transwomen, who may already be facing challenges, a false impression that their achievements are not valued- it’s simply a matter of making sure that these initiatives are appropriately targeted.

How much of an issue has it been for people in practice, and what does that issue look like?

Or check the 2010 Equalities Act. You are allowed to exclude transwomen with GRCs (which gives them the 'legal fiction' that they are female) if it is a proportionate action to achieve a legitimate aim.

I suspect the issue is not what is legal but what is regarded as socially acceptable amongst staff and students. Any initiative aimed at women that excludes transwomen is liable to be denounced as transphobic.

Yes NotDavid is right - I wish all the students realized the difficulties our female students face and supported our wish to encourage them but my fear is that any targetted initiative will inflame what has become a contentious issue. So we do nothing and the female students pay the price for our wish to keep peace.

I suspect the issue is not what is legal but what is regarded as socially acceptable amongst staff and students. Any initiative aimed at women that excludes transwomen is liable to be denounced as transphobic. It plays to the sympathetic ear and not the consequences

Thank you for this thread, I'm enjoying the discussion though have little to add

What a nightmare with respect to the prize. I think it really cuts to the heart of why the transgender movement is so pernicious: the original task of feminists - to support and uplift women in a patriarchal world - becomes simply impossible. You might have legal grounds for excluding transwomen, but the cultural expectations and beliefs of others in your department/community makes that protection useless. And it's not just the TW that are a problem - what do you do about TM, who are natal females but would likely strongly object to being awarded the prize? Or 'non-binaries', who likewise might object in principle to a 'woman's prize' - that's so transphobic! Your prize would have to be 'for natal women who identify as women' - and then you'd probably still get called a bigot and transphobe for some reason or another.

Sorry to be so pessimistic. Of course, targeted support for women only is so valuable in male-dominated domains. But the student body is now pretty deeply immersed in transgender beliefs and it only takes a few to kick up a fuss. Indeed, if you had wanted to devise a strategy to prevent women from flourishing in your domain it is hard to imagine anything more effective than the current blurring of the categories male and female.

Signing in here, I work in PS at a southern RG uni. I am under the radar as GC for the moment. Pronouns have infected email signatures but I am lucky that TRA ideology has not affected me directly as yet.

Hello.
Thank you for the thread.
I'm a lecturer in social/bio science, at an exceptionally TWAW university.
Not "out" as GC, but I frequently and firmly suggest/request collection of both sex and gender data in research (I also use the "sex assigned at birth" question to avoid conflict, but am insistent that this is required in most research projects as well as self ID-ed gender). I feel like this is a small line I can draw - not questioning gender, just being clear that it is distinct from sex and both are important. It's astonishing how many people haven't even considered the risks of conflation for research (even when this research is explicitly examining differences between men and women, for example).

@serendipitea - blimey, that's very difficult.
Would it be possible to offer a separate prize for trans and non-binary students? I think it seems reasonable to state that the women's prize is for women who were "AFAB", because one of the major points to it is recognition of the barriers faced by girls in science education, etc.

Thank you for starting this thread. I'm an academic in an institution that is in Stonewall's top 100 employers. I have been heavily involved in Athena SWAN for the last couple of years and led a discussion on supporting trans students as part of this (and as a reaction to JK Rowling's essay). I have a lot to learn about this as I've been raising small children for the last 5 years and seem to have missed a lot of the debates. But I am definitely GC leaning. I am also sympathetic to the plight of trans students and staff and would like to support them as individuals. But I struggle with issues like TW in women's sports, for women's prizes and I know my female students feel unsafe around gender neutral toilets (it came up in a tutorial on fear of crime). I would very much like to learn from other GC university staff.

@NotN0wBernard - I don't think any feminist is not supportive of individual trans students. It's a myth that "gender critical" feminism is anti-trans.

However, I think as academics, we need to be able to discuss the principles & theories of these sorts of things, just as we discuss matters concerning women, or matters of race & ethnicity, or matters of class.

The problem for feminists (and for all women actually) - as you can see from Serendipitea's post - is that transactivists (Men's rights activist actually) want to erase the category of woman, and are attempting to fundamentally change the definition of what it is to be a woman.

It is this which makes me indescribably deeply angry.

In terms of the prize, I wonder if you could invite all students to get involved and pitch it as a problem which needs solving? That way the result might be something that's "acceptable" while meeting your goals?

So, the goal is to get young women who have been "assigned female at birth", and raised and socialised as women to apply. What would made them do so? Is a "prize" the answer? If so, how can it be advertised to young women AFAB, making it clear that transmen and non-binary young women are included in that category...

But how can you include 'non-binary' as eligible? I've got a man in my department who's recently declared himself as 'NB' - it's a bloody joke and would be hilarious if the ramifications weren't so serious. I understand that on paper you can say NBs are included if they were AFAB (so my bearded colleague wouldn't be eligible) - but in reality you're splitting a category that considers itself to be unitary into two unequal parts on the basis of sex (or as your critics would say - genitalia, because GC people are all so obsessed about it). Theoretically it's possible, but in practical terms it's really difficult. My NB colleague now considers himself an authority on all things equality and inclusion and wouldn't tolerate a prize that only some NBs would be eligible for. Hopefully you don't have anybody so obstructive in your department, I just share this to give you a sense of the potential pitfalls and to point out that that question 'what about the NBs' is far more troublesome than you'd like to imagine...

On a similar note - some of you may be interested to see this Equality Report by a learned society for Classics. Of course, they couldn't just address the position of women in the discipline, they had to include trans and NBs in the category - ie. include men like my colleague. Makes for a pretty useless analysis in my opinion.
cucd.blogs.sas.ac.uk/equality-and-diversity/

Great to meet all of you by the way - nice to know there are some other GCs (including students) out there struggling to find their way in universities!

I'm a student (mature) on a social science degree and I've have similar worries to the previous student who posted.

Thinking about some of the online tutorials I've attended I think there are a fairly wide range of views amongst the tutors (a couple have been quite openly critical about identity politics in general when discussing neo-liberalism.) However, my personal tutors (who mark my essays) have always been quite neutral, meaning I'm fairly wary about expressing any gender critical views too frankly.

I did ask quite a leading question on my last module's cluster forum though. We were asked to come up with an essay question around the material we'd covered on sexualities and queer theory (including Foucault and Butler), which the tutor and other students could then respond to. Some of the forum conversations had been about how to make social policy 'fair' when different 'rights' clashed. I asked something along the lines of ' In an era of boundary pushing and the championing of 'transgressions' how do we balance freedom of sexual expression with the need for effective safeguarding of women and children?'. The tutor on the thread was really lovely and supportive, giving lots of well thought out and lengthy responses to student's questions. It made me feel a bit bad about putting her on the spot but it was quite telling that she only posted a brief 'holding' response saying roughly ' I'll get back to you on that as it's a very delicate and complicated issue and I need to have a think.' In the end, only other students responded to my question, which I thought was quite telling. Teaching is definitely being stifled and students are missing out on well-rounded debate.

This is all so horrifying. I’m hugely relieved that there are still some ‘GC’ academics in higher education (still not sure I want my daughter to risk going to uni in this anti-woman, anti-science climate though) but it’s dystopian to think that ‘GC’ simply means ‘knows that women are a sex class rather than a ladyfeelz identity’ and yet this knowledge is now enough to have you hounded out of your job! To think of the number of FEMALE academics and students who actively push this vile, misogynist totalitarianism??

Imagine this happening with flat earthism - anyone who says the earth is round being accused of hate speech?

The more I think about it the more I think it’s not safe for my daughter to attend one of these cult hubs.

Ps I hate fo say it but there is NO way to design a completion solely for women without it being portrayed as genocidal towards transwomen. That’s where we’re at.

Hello! As per the username I'm at a Scottish university. I'm awaiting the moment which I feel is coming when we are formally requested by the powers that be to put pronouns in our email signatures. Not sure if I have the guts to put "sex based, like my oppression", but to be honest I'm an ECR anyway and the career path is looking shitter than ever so maybe I have nothing to lose! What infuriates me is the uni has been crap about several aspects of maternity leave and have been dragging out responding to the issues I raised for months, whilst they busily discuss pronouns and remove all reference to "the mother" or "she" in mat leave policy.

A few years ago there was a special workshop on gender in my department and it made me furious to see so many highly intelligent people meekly nod as they were told "sex is a spectrum, actually".

@Jamclag - ' In an era of boundary pushing and the championing of 'transgressions' how do we balance freedom of sexual expression with the need for effective safeguarding of women and children?'

Such a good question. I'm sorry your tutor didn't respond - you have every right to follow it up with her. I'm teaching this stuff in a couple of weeks and would so welcome questions of this sort - I think lots of us are taking our cues from students to see where it feels acceptable to go. Keep asking questions like this!

Hi all, thanks for this thread. I’m a tenure track Biologist in the states. Things are OK in my dept, and in some ways racial justice has overshadowed the trans movement. At least until recently. I have talked to a few colleagues and of course

By the way there was a student OP taking about losing trust in faculty that deny biology. However I’d like to point out that it is completely possible to both use correct Biological (genetic) definitions of sex in ones teaching and learning while also believing in gender identity mumbo jumbo. I know many colleagues who follow this view point.

The key point is really this: do you believe that ones sex being female, or ones gender identity being feminine/woman/female is more politically relevant? Broken down this way, it really does not matter if we agree precisely on the definitions - either way there will still be a rights conflict that needs resolving.

Oops left my first paragraph hanging there.

I’ve talked to a few colleagues and of course we are all still defining sex the way we always have - by size of the gamete(s) produced by an individual. I think most are basically unaware to the extent of what’s happening due to lack of leftwing media coverage. I remember talking to one colleague about edge cases, like public locker rooms or sports and she said like it was the most obvious thing in the world that surely third spaces would be The solution? Didn’t seem to realize that 3rd spaces have been branded apartheid by the ACLU. Or that sports are allowing untransitioned males in would in sure be a surprise. Pronouns are funny because I think about 90% of administrators but probably only about 20% of faculty are doing it eg on zoom. I might start writing down some names of colleagues I could possibly trust based on this.

Indeed, if you had wanted to devise a strategy to prevent women from flourishing in your domain it is hard to imagine anything more effective than the current blurring of the categories male and female.

Nails it, IMO.

It's about resources and where they are being directed. Athena SWAN, equality policies (e.g. mat leave) in unis and professional societies ... this will all have a material impact, and a significant one.

I would still encourage anyone to send your child to university, and to keep asking questions, and to complain if they are not answered. Universities are on very shaky ground when it comes to stifling free speech, and they have lost legal cases in the past. My impression is that a large contingent of academics still know what a woman is but hesitate to think the issue through because it would mean that they'd have to scrutinise some very dearly held prejudices about their own place in society. There is a lot of hypocrisy in academia. It's always so telling, for example, when you have a white, elite university educated male earning a nice pay packet and in a conventional heterosexual marriage with kids lecturing you on diversity and inclusion.

Thanks for this thread. Heartening to see so many like minded colleagues out there. I’m a mature research student at a northern university, working in a very small team who still appear to have a reality-based understanding of sex and gender in as far as it has ever come up, although most have not given the wider issues much thought and so are still very much of the be kind and keep quiet mentality. I know of one outspoken GC academic at my institution, but have felt too shy and nervous to make an approach based solely on this issue. Maybe I should think again on it?

@Jamclag .. you posed a great question there and it is very telling your tutor did not respond. I would hate to think that any tutor would penalise a student for presenting a position they didn’t agree with if the work was well-researched and substantiated by literature. We have very stringent marking protocols and you would have a right to appeal if you believe your work has been marked unfairly.

Oh and btw ... looks like a cage has been rattled ...

twitter.com/mimmymum/status/1345783851487010817

Protecting the rights of women and girls is now a “dirty little secret“ ... how progressive!

@umbel

Thanks for this thread. Heartening to see so many like minded colleagues out there. I’m a mature research student at a northern university, working in a very small team who still appear to have a reality-based understanding of sex and gender in as far as it has ever come up, although most have not given the wider issues much thought and so are still very much of the be kind and keep quiet mentality. I know of one outspoken GC academic at my institution, but have felt too shy and nervous to make an approach based solely on this issue. Maybe I should think again on it?

I would love to find colleagues/ students who share my concerns at my own university. It’s the isolation that is difficult and it’s not an issue that I can just put to one side and forget about (I’ve tried!).

My own position has come from a place of introspection and a level of self-reflection that has been challenging and, at times, very uncomfortable. As somebody who has always been liberal minded and very much live and let live, I have had to really examine where my ideas on this have come from (and the corresponding questions about whether I am a ‘bigot’ for thinking the way I do). I doubt that anybody who is taking the ‘be kind’ stance has interrogated their beliefs as deeply as I have my own.

My own position has come from a place of introspection and a level of self-reflection that has been challenging and, at times, very uncomfortable.

VictoriaLucas123 as a lesbian with a previously very gender non-conforming son and a brush with Mermaids, I couldn’t agree more.

From that mimmymum twitter thread:

“the basic and inalienable fact ,is that any gender critical academic, regardless of subjectn is discarding their academic training over evidence in favour of political and religious indoctrination”

LOL

Pure projection. Spoken to quite a few academics about this and for most the only reason they don’t take a GC position is that it’s politically inconvenient. The idea that material reality, your objectively determinable reproductive class, does not matter can only ever be a faith-based position. I’ve literally spent weeks looking at the ‘evidence’ and it just doesn’t hold up.

Mimmy, if you need some reading material, why don’t you look up Lysenkoism?

Delurking. Am at northern Uni and having to negotiate this as an academic working in ps. My (carefully thought out stance - with thanks to FWR) is this -

Pronouns - nobody's business but mine/very personal so won't be sharing

Research demographics - as pp mentioned i advocate for sex and gender so a robust analysis is possible, including identifying the distinct experiences of TW and TM.

Everything else - 'l look forward to seeing the equality impact assessment on that to ensure that x policy is properly inclusive of all the protected characteristics'.

To the pp who did not get a response from the tutor re safeguarding - again I would have answered stressing the need for equality impact assessments, which inherently cover safeguarding.